Distant Worlds: Universe is the entire Distant Worlds series in one package, including the new Universe expansion which greatly improves moddability (make your own governments, research trees, resources, components, events, etc.) a new Ancient Galaxy storyline that also serves as a reference mod and performance and AI improvements.

It will release on May 23rd through our Online Store as well as, for the first time ever, through Steam. As this includes both the new Universe expansion with greatly expanded modding support and the Ancient Galaxy storyline plus all previous releases, it will give new customers and existing customers a unified installation for future support and modding and a great affordable entry point to the series.

The base price of Distant Worlds: Universe will be $59.99 Download / $74.99 Physical. This represents a significant discount over the previous series bundle. The Physical version is only available through our store and includes an updated and full color printed Distant Worlds series game manual.

For the release, it will be available at a pre-order price of $49.99 Download / $64.99 physical. This will be the pre-order price through Steam. As we don't do pre-orders through our own store, this will be our release price as well, with a post-release promotional period as with past Distant Worlds releases that allows early adopters to get the game for a lower price, after which it will revert to the permanent $59.99 / $74.99 price level.

We will also be offering existing customers a discount based on what parts of the series they own. It's a $10 discount per release, so if you own everything that's been released so far (Distant Worlds + Return of the Shakturi + Legends + Shadows) then during the post-release promotion period, your price to upgrade to Universe would be $9.99 Download or $24.99 Physical ($49.99 or $64.99 - $40 discount for four previous releases). There will be a page on our site where you can get the upgrade discount coupon. This upgrade will be available through our store only, we don't have a way of doing this through Steam. All you will need to get the upgrade coupon is the serial number for each release. We'll be offering Steam keys to customers who upgrade and purchase through our site.

The release will be on May 23rd.

We plan for there to be one more Shadows update, but all future modding/feature/performance improvements will be based on the Universe level.

Yes, if you purchase/upgrade through our store we will offer a Steam key as well. We and Elliot earn the most revenue when you purchase directly through us, but we want to make DW available to the larger community and many new players as well, while offering the most flexibility to our existing community. There will be a page on our site to use your Universe serial number to retrieve a Steam key after you purchase Universe.

Yes, we'll be monitoring the Steam forums as well and we would greatly appreciate the help of our existing community to help guide new players as th take their first steps with Distant Worlds once it's available on Steam.

Saw that as well Starlab, don't know what's up with that, I assume it's a Steam glitch. We're contacting them but I can confirm the 23rd is the actual release date.

Great news all round, Erik, thank you. The 23rd is sooner than I was expecting.

Just want to join the clamour for certain additional information:

1. Will we be able to put our mods up on Steamwoks? 2. Will the people who have already bought the game via Matrix geta steam key, as long as they upgrade to Universe - I'm guessing they will, as that seems to be the case for most games, and is obviously a good move from a customer service perspective? [Edit, Erik answered before I posted, so this question is now redundant]

I really hope that to play the game in the future,that you don't need to have a steam account.If the dreaded DRM issue re-appears,then this is where my involvement with Distant Worlds ends,I won't play via steam,not now not ever period.

I really hope that to play the game in the future,that you don't need to have a steam account.If the dreaded DRM issue re-appears,then this is where my involvement with Distant Worlds ends,I won't play via steam,not now not ever period.

As a Tester, I can assure you that I don't use Steam, so you shouldn't have to worry about that.

Just to be completely clear, we are not adding any DRM to Distant Worlds. It's being sold through our store as usual and it's entirely the customer's choice where they want to purchase it. As with our other games that have gone to Steam, we will always sell them on our store as well and our policies regarding DRM and customer satisfaction have not changed.

If you don't like Steam, nothing changes for you. If you do like Steam, it is now available there for you.

The two galaxies - well, one is the galaxy you've been playing in, the other is the nearby galaxy where you-know-who came from.

I knew this was coming. After last expansion DW gets the steam treatment. Still will be buying directly from you though. Just realized I'll be on vacation so I might not be able to enjoy Universe until Monday night. Wait we gets steam key from buying directly from you?! Well that's great thanks!

Also I'll be making my posts on other forums about this coming release. Hopefully you guys break da bank on release.

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Create the content on the Web server. Review the browser URL. Create a tracing rule to track failed requests for this HTTP status code and see which module is calling SetStatus. For more information about creating a tracing rule for failed requests, click here.

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Edit: The link at Space Game Junkie works, odd.

Edit2: My mistake the link at Space Game Junkie only takes you to the product page with no way to purchase.